Chapter Text
Semantics is an art form. Seriously! It provided more loopholes than anything else Darcy Lewis had ever had the dubious pleasure of dealing with. It was Semantics and the loopholes it created that had gotten her through not one, not two, not even three, but -FOUR- change of majors. She’d had five majors total in her college career, something she was immensely proud of.
She’d started with Philosophy. It wasn’t nearly as relaxed as she’d thought it would be, too many existential crisis going on with the emo little twits who called that department home. She’d changed to Literature, thinking the creativity would inspire her to something more. Sadly this was not the case and there was no way in hell she was reading through Les Miserables in it’s original five-volume boss-form. So she switched to History. Interesting in some ways, but pointing out what you thought were obvious inconsistencies with thought and deed brought about instant punishment from the fascist regime who ruled the department. So she moved on to Business Administration thinking it could at least help her get a decent job in the Real World. Sadly, most of the people in that program thought they were Tony Stark in disguise or Hipsters. She could handle the Stark-wannabe’s, she couldn’t handle the self-entitled hipster-chic cretins who didn’t understand nearly half of what they thought they did. So she made her final change. Political Science. She figured it could at least get her pre-law and she could become Shark or something.
Political Science was her niche. Current events, government bureaucracy, foreign affairs, rumors, debates - she was in heaven. She sharpened her sarcasm to a razor edge and smiled as she won the majority of the debates she was involved in. Of the debates she didn’t win, most were draws due to her love of semantics. One could follow the very letter of the law and get away with a lot more than others would think. It was a beautiful thing.
Darcy had spent six years at a four year college after graduating high school with not only her diploma, but an AA degree from the local community college thanks to her dedication to the running start program. She wasn’t stupid, no matter what a few uninformed individuals might assume. She only needed a handful of credits to complete a BA in the majors she’d transferred out of, but they hadn’t been interesting enough to keep her attention.
Then came the summer of her six-science-credits internship. She’d applied because she was bored, it was always good to horde credits when you liked to hop majors, it took her someplace new, and it got her away from the crowds of people who weren’t close enough to ever talk to about things you wouldn’t post on Facebook. There were a lot of things Darcy didn’t believe should be posted on Facebook. Things like anything family related.
Not that Darcy had much of a family. She was an only child, didn’t know her grandparents, had no idea if she had cousins and mostly avoided the topic of family whenever possible. What she did have, was a drunken drug addicted mother who had attempted to pimp out her child for Snow and a drunken, gambling addict of a father who had been found dead in an alley when she was seven years old. Darcy had spent most of her life being taken from and given back to a woman that liked to pretend she could be something other than a failure of a human being. So Darcy just didn’t share. She had never really mastered the making friends portion of her childhood and didn’t really care one way or another.
College was an experience Darcy had chosen to get the best of, though. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of friends, but she had a lot of people she was friendly with. It gave her a few hundred Facebook friends, which was kind of a step in the right direction when you thought about it. She went on a few dates, went to frat parties where she blacked out and woke up without her clothes on, went to sorority parties where she blacked out and woke up without her clothes on, and worked her ass off to keep up a 4.0 gpa so she could keep her scholarships. She didn’t really have direction though, and she certainly didn’t feel any sense of purpose.
Darcy’s tenure as Dr. Jane Foster’s intern taught her about science. It also taught her about Mad Scientists, a passion for your job, Scandinavian curse words, mythology, bureaucratic red tape, alphabet agencies, sibling rivalry, and actual friendship. There was probably more she could have added to that list, but those were some of her favorite. Oh, wait, hot aliens with six-packs. That was also important.
Agent Phil Coulson had swooped in like a calm center of a suited storm. She had learned his first name when she’d picked his pocket to double check his badge. The man had been less than amused, though Jane had looked impressed. He’d had everything taken from the lab, up to and including her iPod. That had crossed a line in Darcy’s opinion. You simply didn’t mess with another persons tunes. She vowed vengeance then and there, Jane hadn’t been as amused since she was more worried about all her Science! equipment. The capitalization and exclamation point were important in this case, as it was actually super-science.
SHIELD ended her internship with a great deal of non-disclosure forms and a greatly redacted summary of her internship. Just in case. She still got the credits though, and the now focused Darcy Lewis graduated with a BS in Political Science and a handful of minors. During those eight months Darcy traded daily emails with Jane (who went through five SHIELD assigned assistants during that time) and worked her way through the red tape of secret government agencies, filing complaints left and right with a demented kind of glee. Since all of them were (to the letter of the law) valid, they had to be read through and responded to.
Darcy graduated Summa Cum Laude. The only reason she walked at all was because Jane and Erik insisted they needed pictures. She might not have discussed her home life with them, but they weren’t so enraptured by their science they couldn’t piece together the fact that it wasn’t a happy childhood. They came to the graduation, cheered for her when her name was called, and even brought her flowers. Maybe she’d teared up a bit at that, but really you couldn’t blame a girl for getting teary over affection. Not only that, but the physics faculty started salivating as soon as they spotted them. Jane and Erik had been publishing everything SHIELD approved for public consumption. There were even rumors that Stark Industries might be getting involved on their work sometime soon.
Darcy spent two months working at a crappy diner and refusing to work for SHIELD. She’d been offered a ridiculous salary and the promise to get her iPod back, but she knew that iPod came with a lot more strings and simply wasn’t willing to deal with that. Soon enough she’d have the money to get a new one and until then she had music downloaded on her phone and computer. She’d keep sending in the requisition forms though, just to piss people off. At this point it would probably be suicide to work for SHIELD, the HR department likely hated her. Besides, she was thinking about pre-law at Columbia and becoming even a low level agent would involve more time than she would need.
Thankfully, Jane came through with an outside position as her assistant (SHIELD HR allowed for it. Besides, no one else could figure out Darcy’s filing system.) It meant she answered to Jane, not to anyone else. They had absconded off with Erik and Jane needed people who believed in her, not just people who nodded and kissed her ass. It worked out well for the two women. Darcy might have to come into SHIELD HQ in NYC now, but at least she could also do school and got to see her best friend every day AND get paid for it. Also, she got to poke the other SHIELD scientists, sometimes literally. It was an interesting change, that was for sure.